Site Mobile Navigation

A Garlic Festival Without a Single Clove

“I’D rather have an ounce of garlic than a pound of truffles,” my father often said, setting the tone for garlic worship in our family.

When I was growing up, no meal was complete without several of the odoriferous cloves: from the omelets at breakfast to the garlic butter popcorn as a snack before bedtime. And if my dad never did get around to making garlic ice cream, it was only because he was perfecting his garlic-laced gazpacho sorbet.

Given this history, it was no surprise that the first time I came upon a cascading pile of vivid green, curling garlic scapes at the farmers’ market, I had to buy some, even though I had no idea of what do with them.

Their graceful form gives few clues about their function. Garlic scapes are pencil thin and exuberantly loopy, and emanate a clean and mildly garlicky scent. At the top of each is a tightly closed but bulging bud. I contemplated sticking them in a vase with the peonies, but ultimately realized I’d rather eat them.

Photo

AH! NOT EW! Garlic in three forms,
from left: green garlic, garlic scapes
and mature heads.Credit
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Since my cookbook indexes came up empty in a search for scapes, I called my dad for advice. “Garlic scapes?” he said. “Do you mean green garlic?”

He was referring to the tender crop of garlic that also appears in the market in spring, bulbs still attached to their green floppy tops. Having become addicted to their juiciness and musky sweetness, I always make a point to buy plenty when I see them.

At the time he didn’t know how to cook them either, so I decided to wing it.

Since the scapes reminded me of extra-long green beans, I treated them as such, cutting them into two-inch lengths, blanching them and tossing them with a lemony vinaigrette.

They had a gently spicy undertone and an exquisitely fresh green, mellow taste. Unlike regular garlic, which needs some kind of vehicle to carry its intense flavor to the mouth, scapes are self-sufficient; vegetable and aromatic all in one. Ever since that first batch, I gleefully buy scapes whenever I can, using them in salads, soups and pesto.

Photo

Green garlic soup with chives and thyme.Credit
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I use green garlic in dressings, dips and sautés. Even a breakfast of toasted baguette with butter is infinitely improved by a topping of thinly sliced raw green garlic sprinkled with crunchy sea salt and fresh thyme leaves. Much milder and more succulent than regular garlic, green garlic won’t cause your fellow subway riders to inch away from you.

Another bonus of green garlic: Because it’s uncured (not dried), there’s no papery skin. After trimming the roots and tops, all you need to do is peel off the outermost layer of the bulb.

It occurred to me, as I reveled in my alliums one evening last June, that this crop deserved a celebration, a party where I could serve a vampire-repelling repast showcasing garlic in its many incarnations.

So a few weeks later I trotted back to the farmers’ market to stock up. But I was too late. “All gone,” a farmer told me. “Come back next year.”

Next spring, I promised myself, I’d throw one garlic-palooza of a party. Meanwhile, I had loads of time for planning and research. Scapes, I learned, are the flower shoots of the garlic bulb. Farmers cut them off to encourage the bulbs to grow plumper. When the garlic is harvested before individual cloves are formed, it is called green garlic.

Photo

DONT TARRY
At Union Square and other farmers markets, green garlics season is right
now.Credit
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

By May my appetite was primed. I started bothering the farmers at the Greenmarket, asking when the harvest would be in. My urgency amused Bill Maxwell, of Maxwell Farms in Changewater, N.J., who, after telling me to cool my heels until mid-June, offered a pearl of scapes insight.

Although they’ve been gaining a following over the last few years, he said, scapes came to market “when someone figured out they could make money from something they were cutting off the garlic plant and getting rid of.”

Peter Hoffman, the chef at Savoy, added, “At some point someone realized the scapes were tender and delicious.” He suggested that I sauté them with other vegetables or soft-shell crabs, or even grill them whole to show off their curves.

Finally, the market bloomed with baskets of scapes that looked like twisted garden snakes and bunches of green garlic with their leek-like stems still attached.

As I scooped armloads into my bag, I daydreamed about my party. I came up with a menu to showcase the alliums in several manifestations: raw, quickly sautéed and slowly confited.

Photo

A soufflé of green garlic, chives and Gruyère cheese.Credit
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

It was not an occasion for the faint of heart. I planned to ease my guests into the piquant depths slowly with a docile creamy soup of green garlic and scapes sautéed in butter, then puréed. But while it bubbled away on the stove, and green garlic bulbs, slick with oil, roasted in the oven, I realized everyone would need a snack. So I decided to whip up a dip.

The pantry offered canned white beans and chickpeas. I considered hummus but decided to go for the paler legume to flaunt the scapes’ verdant hue.

I ground beans and scapes in the food processor with a little lemon, and less olive oil than I would have used behind closed doors. The dip was billowing and fluffy, with the color of sugar snap peas. It had a velvety texture that wrapped itself around an assertive, racy wallop so intense that I worried I’d scare even my garlic-loving parents out of the house.

Instead, my guests closed in on the bowl like house cats to cream cheese. The soup, more delicate and earthy than the dip, met a similar fate.

And so did a puffy soufflé filled with chopped green garlic, chives and plenty of Gruyère cheese. This dish really threw my guests off guard.

Photo

Chai-spiced wings dipped in a green garlic aioli.Credit
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

“You think of soufflé as being all airy and light and a little bland,” a friend said, “then wham! The garlic smacks you in the face — you know, in a good way.”

For the next course I yielded to garlic’s subtler state, which it takes on while slowly confiting. To balance the sweetness, I sautéed the caramelized garlic with salty pancetta, fiery chili flakes, a squeeze of lemon for brightness and some chopped peppery arugula, then tossed it with penne. It was bracing and honeyed, with the lemon and chili preventing the garlic from being too cloying.

I pressed on to one more course, grilled chai-spiced chicken wings with green garlic aioli. The inspiration came from a baroque-sounding recipe on the Gilroy Garlic Festival Web site that included a marinade of green tea, lemon grass and curry paste. I decided to pare it down, seasoning the chicken with whole chai spices and making an aioli with just egg and oil — and loads of garlic.

The aioli was the most potent dish of the night, and everyone quadruple-dipped their wings into the bowl. When the last of it was licked clean, I mentioned dessert. My father leaned forward, perhaps thrilled that I might fulfill his garlic ice cream fantasy.

But no, he was just reaching for the wine, and was visibly relieved when I brought out fresh strawberries. “You know why I never made garlic ice cream?” he asked.

“Because it’s a terrible idea?” I answered.

“Exactly.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page F1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Garlic Festival Without a Single Clove. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe